Q I’m a female CEO and I usually wear black. What should I wear to stand out, but not stick out, in a room full of grey suits?

Hilary Evans, chief executive at Alzheimer’s Research UK

“If you asked someone to draw what they think a

CEO looks like, 90 per cent will draw a white middle-aged man in a suit,” considers Hilary Evans. “Young women in this position generally go one of two ways – we wear a very bright, fitted dress to look graphic and say

‘I’m here’ or we do the opposite and wear black tailoring to fit in.”

Evans contacted Spearman in the hope of finding something in the middle of these two poles. “The charity sector is quite dynamic, so we can dress with flair but my role still requires me to look smart. I’m asking people to invest in the charity, so I understand that they also need to invest in me. My default black shift dress from Zara is perfectly safe, but it gets boring to wear it every week.”

Spearman has put the brand Libby London on Evans’s radar, citing its relaxed coloured shirt dresses (which won’t crease on the train when she travels from Cambridge to London to pitch for funding) as the key piece that will work for her.

“Burgundy, dark green and purple are sober tones but they’re warm and rich, so they’re friendly,” Spearman says. “Black is actually quite harsh. Hilary is often on a stage in front of 500 people in the finance sector, she needs to look approachable.”

To finish the look (and completely banish all black) Spearman picked tonal matching accessories. “It’s just less obvious than a black boot,” she says, “the wrong black shoe can kill an outfit.”